Characterization of the chemical profiles of essential oils ofPerovskia abrotanoides Karel., an endemic plant to Golestanprovince

The present study describes the potential capabilities of three different extraction techniques, namelyhydrodistillation (HD), solvent–free microwave extraction (SFME) as well as headspace solid–phasemicroextraction (HS–SPME) to isolate the essential oils and volatile fractions from the flowers,leaves and stems of Perovskia abrotanoides Karel. in combination with chromatographic analysisusing by GC and GC–MS instrumentations. Using the HD method, ۲۱, ۲۵ and ۲۱ constituents wereidentified in the essential oils from the flowers, leaves and the stems of P. abrotanoides Karel.respectively accounting for ۹۵.۱, ۹۵.۱ and ۹۶.۲% of the oil profiles. By means of SFME, ۳۳, ۳۴ and۳۴ components were respectively identified covering ۹۲.۷, ۹۳.۵ and ۹۵.۲% of the entire oilcompositions on the same organs. Furthermore, HS–SPME resulted in recognition of ۲۱, ۱۵ and ۱۱natural compounds on the aforementioned plant organs respectively constituting ۹۵.۴%, ۸۷.۹% and۹۳.۸% of the total volatile profiles. Regarding the general categories of the oils and volatilecompositions, it is evident that in all of the corresponding profiles, both in HD and in SFMEtechniques, the first and second ranks were respectively due to oxygenated monoterpenes (OM) andmonoterpene hydrocarbons (MH) except the stem profile of the oil obtained by HD in which oxygencontaining monoterpenes and sesquiterpenes, e.g. OM and OS had respectively the first and secondranks. Finally, a similar trend was noted in all of the characterized profiles of the volatiles of P.abrotanoides Karel. (flowers, leaves and stems) with high prevalence of MH and OM using HS–SPME technique.